


When It Comes Howling Down The Mountain

by aileenrose



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Constipated Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Apologizes, M/M, Natural Disasters, Post-Episode: S01E06 Rare Species
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:42:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28131102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aileenrose/pseuds/aileenrose
Summary: Geralt has memories of taking shelter in this cave before. Jaskier apparently does, too.Nearly a year after the mountain, a storm brings the two of them together again.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 23
Kudos: 595





	When It Comes Howling Down The Mountain

There’s something in the air, a warning that something is coming. Geralt’s medallion doesn’t vibrate, but he still doesn’t question the danger of what he senses, of what Roach, uneasy, seems to sense, too.

He and Ciri have been traveling north for several weeks now. It’s time to head to Kaer Morhen, but traveling with another slows him down, as traveling with another human in the past had done, too. They also have to be careful to avoid Nilfgaardian patrols, or anyone who might recognize the princess and seek reward. For that reason they’ve been sticking to less-traveled roads, avoiding cities.

Geralt knows about where he is, now. There’s a cave, where once—well. Beyond that, there’s a tavern about a half-mile up the road, and—as much as he’s tried to avoid contact with humans—he thinks they should take a room if the innkeep there allows it. He thinks he can eke out enough coin. All he knows is that something is coming, and he wants to get out of its path.

It’s only afternoon, but the clouds make it heavier, darker, like it’s much later than it is. The mountains rising on either side of them do their share to block out light, too. Ciri is silent, sitting in the saddle in front of him, her head moving from side to side. It doesn’t mean she, too, senses something. Just that she’s learned to be watchful, now, too.

She visibly perks up when the small hamlet comes into view, in the bend of the road. Roach does, too, probably knowing that shelter and food are forthcoming. Despite the blow to his coin, Geralt is looking forward to it, too, until—

He hears a voice on the breeze. The voice is singing, accompanied by a burst of lute strings, rising bright and merry. He’s gone nearly a year without hearing that voice, but can still place it immediately, entertaining a crowd within the tavern, still nearly a half-mile away.

Jaskier.

He pulls Roach up short. After a moment, Ciri cranes around to look at him.

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” he says. “It’s—nothing.”

But it’s not nothing. He can still remember Jaskier’s crestfallen face, the waves of hurt and despair and _still,_ somehow, longing, that radiated from him that day on the mountain. Geralt had done that to Jaskier, and has spent nearly a year thinking it was for the best. That it _had_ to be for the best, because there was no way to fix it now. Every day that passed seemed to make the likelihood of ever fixing it seem smaller and smaller.

And now—here he is, a fugitive to Nilfgaard’s desires, with a hunted princess in tow. How could he expect to see Jaskier now—singing so bright and merry in the tavern there—when all Geralt could bring him was more uncertainty, fear, danger?

He urges Roach to the left, turning her around. She resists, at first. He has to dig his heels into her sides.

“Why are we—”

Perhaps it’s hearing Jaskier’s voice. That’s what makes him remember again. There’s a cave not too far from this town. It’s back the way they came a bit, and then some rocky terrain along a steep slope. They’d stayed there before, years ago, when the people in that same tavern had thrown the both of them out. Well, they’d thrown Geralt out. But Jaskier wasn’t one to leave him behind. He’d risked uncertainty, fear, danger then, too.

“We’re staying elsewhere,” Geralt says.

“Yes, but, why don’t we just travel through, then?”

Geralt shakes his head. “Something’s coming. We need to get settled fast.”

It is just beginning to rain by the time they clamber into the mouth of the cave. It was steep, that last bit, the rocks slippery beneath Roach’s hooves. Ciri is panting hard for breath, the both of them having dismounted to make it easier.

The cave is long and high enough that Roach can stand in the deep shadows of it, and still room for Ciri and Geralt to lay out their bedrolls, make room for a fire, away from the entrance of the cave, where the rainwater is being blown in sideways.

“Stay here,” Geralt commands. Even with the tree cover just down the slope, the pelting wind is merciless, cold. He makes three trips for kindling, and then stops, figuring it will have to be enough. From the mouth of the cave, the world becomes blurred by water.

“It’s a heavy storm,” Ciri says, her eyes wide in the low light of the cave.

“Are you scared?” Geralt asks. “We should be safe here.”

She shakes her head. “I’m not scared. It just seems… unnatural.”

The fire whooshes to life. Geralt squats back from it. “I think it’s a windstorm. There’ll be a lot more water and wind and cold to come overnight.”

“Alright,” she says, and scootches closer to the fire.

It was here, in this cave, that Geralt and Jaskier had taken shelter. It had been near winter, cold, and the tavern’s ill will made them feel far colder. Jaskier had even wondered aloud if they might seek Geralt out, try to do him harm—it seemed “Toss a Coin” could not defer their animosity. But Geralt was sure they would be safe there, left alone. They were. Jaskier, smiling craftily, revealed the three stoppered flagons of ale that he’d somehow managed to steal away inside his lute case. _Nimble fingers, my dear, it’s all in the wrist—_ they’d started with a flagon apiece, Jaskier hiccupping through an old drinking ballad he knew.

Geralt is standing by Roach, feeding her an apple, where he hears it. A loud scuff outside.

“By Melitele’s supple—” comes the exclamation, and then someone more or less falls into the cave. Ciri scrambles backwards, toward Geralt, who immediately unsheathes his sword in a burst of metal.

The newcomer looks up, dazzled by the firelight. His eyes focus on Geralt, his mouth drops open.

“ _Geralt_?”

What comes next is admittedly not Geralt’s best opening line, especially to a man he has secretly, if bitterly, regretted his parting comments to. But the surprise of seeing Jaskier here, when he should be at a tavern a mile away, and never knowing how close the two of them had come—

Geralt says, “What are _you_ doing here?”

Jaskier flinches. He looks very much like a drowned bird, his colorful clothes sodden and limp from the rain. His hair is plastered to his head, running with rivulets—tracking down his face, his neck. Wet and shivering and staring at him in shock.

“I—I—” Jaskier says. He gets up onto his knees. “I certainly didn’t expect to find you here, either!”

“Who is he, Geralt?” Ciri says, leaning around him. “You know him?”

Geralt finally sheathes his sword. “Yes,” he says. “I know him.”

There’s a long, tense silence. Geralt can’t think of what to possibly say, now that Jaskier is here. Now that he can say whatever he should say, after nearly a year apart.

“Well,” Jaskier says. There’s a shivery, false note to it. He pushes himself up to standing. “Uh, squatters’ rights, as they say, so I’ll just go… find another cave…”

As if to punctuate his words, there’s a bright streak of lightning, a loud clap of thunder. It echoes in the cave.

“But he can’t!” CIri says, turning to Geralt. “Geralt, tell him. About the windstorm. About how dangerous it is.”

Jaskier should know, having already been out in the elements. It’s been raining for nearly an hour now—heavy, sheeting rain. And yet for some reason he’d left that warm tavern to walk through the storm to find the cave he and Geralt had once shared, many years before. Some might call it Destiny, bringing them back together. At the thought, Geralt’s frown is deep.

“There’s a good chance of mudslides,” he says finally. “Lightning strikes. Flash floods. And the wind hasn’t even started yet. You could be pushed off the slope, have a tree fall on you…”

“All perfectly acceptable ways to take myself off your hands,” Jaskier says.

“Jaskier—”

“And who do I have the pleasure of speaking to?” he says, speaking past him. Ciri looks to Geralt for permission.

“I’m Ciri,” she says finally, shy.

“Well met,” Jaskier says. He peers around the cave. “And where’s the nag?”

Ciri gives Jaskier a look of confusion, gesturing to the visible horse. “Roach is right—”

“He means Yennefer,” Geralt interrupts. “And she’s not with us. Now.”

He adds the _now_ to be honest, because it’s true that they plan to meet Yennefer at Kaer Morhen, to pick up Ciri’s training again. Jaskier’s mouth twists.

“Sad to miss her,” he says, in a very un-sad voice. “And yet, despite the purported danger, I still believe I should make my bed elsewhere. Geralt—I hope you forgive the intrusion, it was _very_ much an accident—”

Geralt moves past the fire, past his and Ciri’s bedrolls, and walks up to Jaskier, standing in a puddle of his own water. He’s still standing so close to the entrance that the cold rain is pelting his back. This close, he can smell Jaskier—ink, parchment, rosin, a tang of blood—but also _sense_ him—anxiety, sadness, and _still_ , somehow, longing.

“Stay,” he says.

Jaskier’s facial expression does a few complicated acrobatics, too fast for Geralt to try to parse.

“I shouldn’t—”

The last time they’d been in the cave, they’d finished their flagons and then moved to the third. They split that one, passing it back and forth, sitting close to each other so they could share. The heat of Jaskier’s shoulder against him, his hip against him. How completely fearless he was in Geralt’s presence, so starkly different from the scared humans who had run Geralt from the tavern. Geralt had thought that as he drank from the same flagon Jaskier did, the ale warm in his stomach. This was before Yennefer. This was before many things.

Geralt glowers and walks past Jaskier, turning to face him as he blocks the cave entrance, arms crossed, so Jaskier can’t leave.

“Stay,” he says again. “There’s room enough for us all.”

And he hopes, as he says it, that becomes true.

Jaskier shoots him an unbelieving glance, but finally his shoulders sink. He takes another step into the cave, unhooks his pack from his shoulder. Geralt winces at the look of Jaskier’s bedroll, soaking.

“Lay that out by the fire,” he says, and Jaskier does, without a quip. Now that he’s decided he’s staying, Jaskier seems to have lost the desire to speak. He silently sinks down on the cave floor.

“You’re bleeding,” Geralt says. He can tell, by the scent, that it’s not life-threatening, but it’s blood nonetheless.

“It’s nothing,” Jaskier says dismissively.

Geralt turns away, goes back to Roach. It feels good to feel purposeful, avoid Jaskier’s eyes. After a moment he digs around in the saddlebags, unearths their low supply of food.

“I was in town,” Jaskier says lowly, speaking to his back. Geralt realizes Jaskier is answering the first question Geralt had asked, when he’d tumbled into the cave as if out of the sky. “And I realized I’d been there before, a tavern with a lack of welcome. And I remembered this cave, and my way to it. And I thought…”

Geralt turned back. “Thought what?”

“I thought I wanted to see it again.” He looks around, at the close walls, the shadows the flames send flickering overhead. “And it seems the same. It’s not the cave that’s changed.”

Geralt stiffens. He wants to tell Jaskier to be quiet, but it wouldn’t be for Ciri’s sake. Geralt doesn’t want to know the ways he’s changed, the ways they’ve changed, since that other time in the cave.

Jaskier, however, seems just as disinclined to say anything else. He digs in his pack, too, and pulls out a package of dried meat. It’s a little damp but otherwise unharmed. Geralt watches as Jaskier offers some to Ciri, who takes it, and then Jaskier puts it on the floor next to the fire, where Geralt would be sitting if he would come closer. An obvious invitation.

 _Can witchers even get drunk_? Jaskier had asked, when they’d been working on that third flagon. And Geralt had admitted it took a lot, more than three flagons, to approach a witcher’s threshold for drunkenness. _But does it lower your inhibitions?_ Jaskier asked in a scholarly, Oxenfurt tone, and Geralt said, _Inhibitions to what_ , and Jaskier had turned into his lap and grabbed his jaw and kissed him and kissed him and kissed him—

“—Traveled together, a while ago,” Jaskier is saying, answering some question put to him by Ciri.

“Traveling doing what?”

“I’m a bard,” Jaskier says. “I write songs, too.”

“Can you sing them?” Ciri asks, eager for the entertainment.

“Well, I left my lute with the innkeep,” Jaskier says—which speaks to his preservation instincts, Geralt thinks, to leave his instrument behind for safekeeping, but not his own body. Ciri nods, eyes downcast, and Jaskier relents. “I suppose I could sing you a song if, uh, Geralt doesn’t care.”

Geralt steps away from Roach, coming toward the fire. “Why should I care?”

Jaskier gives him an odd, searching look. “I thought you—never mind.”

Jaskier sits cross-legged, using his fingers to tap time against his knees, and begins to sing. Geralt doesn’t know this one—it’s not something from his repertoire, something about the White Wolf—but it appears Ciri knows it. She beams eagerly, nearly bouncing, as she mouths along.

It shouldn’t bother Geralt, but it does, not knowing what Jaskier means by that. Does Jaskier assume Geralt doesn’t care for his singing? He did make that _fillingless pie_ comment, but that was years ago. But Geralt doesn’t know what perceptions of him that Jaskier keeps now. Can only think that, whatever they are, they are deserved, after what Geralt did to him.

But maybe Geralt can show him, even if it’s hard to speak in Ciri’s presence about their past, that he still cares for him the same.

Geralt takes a seat by the fire. As Jaskier sings, he uses a small knife to carve slices out of their last apple that he’d taken from Roach’s saddlebags. He offers them over to Ciri, who pops them in her mouth. Then he offers them to Jaskier, as he finishes up the song. Jaskier doesn’t say anything, just gives an askance look and shakes his head slightly, and launches into another.

 _Inhibitions, like, the inhibitions that keep you from fucking your bard_ , Jaskier had gasped against his lips, that other night in the cave. And Geralt had to admit, at least to himself, that those inhibitions had been rather shaky to begin with. He’d known Jaskier had wanted him from the first, and surprised himself by finding the feeling to be reciprocated not long after. So he gathered Jaskier closer in his lap, bracketed his body within his arms, and sucked kisses down his neck, while Jaskier moaned, throat bared, urging him on.

“I love that song,” Ciri says. “I haven’t heard it in forever.”

It’s one of my favorites, princess,” Jaskier says, and the word hangs easy before the meaning of it fully drops. The mood of the room shifts. Outside, the thunder again, and a sound like shifting rocks somewhere far above them.

“How—” Ciri says, and turns to look to Geralt. She looks unsure how to react.

“Oh,” Jaskier says. “I shouldn’t have—well. It was rather obvious, wasn’t it?”

“It’s fine, Ciri,” Geralt tells her, since she’s all but vibrating next to him.

“I mean, you wouldn’t be traveling with a child unless it was your Child Surprise. No offense,” Jaskier says, looking between them. “Nilfgaard’s even been after me a couple times, now, trying to find out your whereabouts. At this point, it’s anything but a secret.”

Geralt stares. _That_ hadn’t occurred to him, that Jaskier could be in danger now. Could be the subject of Nilgaard’s pursuit.

“A couple times,” he repeats slowly.

“Well,” Jaskier says, clapping his thighs and making as if he’s about to stand, “I’ll gather us some more kindling, shall I?”

“There’s no kindling to be had,” Geralt says flatly, “unless you want to drown. What do you mean, a couple times?”

Jaskier’s hair has dried enough that he can now fingercomb his fringe to the side, which he does now, seemingly as a nervous habit. “It’s not—I didn’t tell them where you were.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Geralt says, his temper rising. Jaskier, potentially in danger. Tortured, maimed, killed for information—he’d put none of it past Nilfgaard. Jaskier, skirting around the question. “How could you know?”

Jaskier flinches. “Right.”

Geralt pinches the bridge of his nose, gets his annoyance in check. “A couple times,” he grinds out.

“It was nothing,” Jaskier says after a moment. “A minor roughing up. Some light whipping. Honestly, I might have even _enjoyed_ it in another context—” he catches Ciri’s eye, fumbles—“but, anyways, then I got away.”

And should it surprise Geralt, that Jaskier is trying to downplay the matter, as if for his own sake?

 _Fuck, Jaskier_ , Geralt had groaned, and grabbed Jaskier by the nape of the neck and pulled his face away. Jaskier’s lips been bruised, red from kissing. He looked abashed, ready to begin apologizing, but only for a moment, only for as long as it took for Geralt to stick his hand down the front of his trousers. With Jaskier, he sensed he did not have to be too gentle, to keep the whole of himself away. Jaskier wanted it all. _Fuck, Jaskier_ , Geralt had said again, feeling him harden in his hand. To think they could have this. To think they could have this many times again. To think Jaskier had been waiting for him, all along, that he’d felt this from the first.

“You’re in danger now,” Geralt says.

“Well, yes,” Jaskier agrees. “That’s why I’m here. Well not _here_ here,” he says, gesturing at his surroundings. “This was just a trot down memory lane. But this is why I’m in this area. I’m heading home to Lettenhove.”

“I thought your family had nothing to do with you.”

“True,” Jaskier says. He smiles wanly. “With luck, I’ll be able to persuade them.”

There’s another loud rumble of rocks somewhere above them. The mouth of the cave resembles a waterfall—impossible to see what is happening beyond it. Ciri makes a small sound of distress, so Geralt stands up.

“I’ll be right back,” he tells them, and shoulders through the waterfall before either of them can reply.

Outside, the conditions have deteriorated. Mud and debris slide past him down the slope, water torrenting in eddies. He can see washouts, places where boulders have become unlodged and come crashing down. Beyond that, even his eyes can’t pick out—the world is whited out by water. A buffet of wind comes so strongly it nearly throws him back into the cave. He holds onto the rock, balancing himself, keeping himself from going back in for another moment.

He owes Jaskier more apologies than he realized. Not just that day on the mountain. But also for making him doubt if he’d ever liked his singing, his presence. For putting him in danger with Nilfgaard. Maybe even for what had happened here once, what they’d never spoken of again. It seems so big an undertaking that he isn’t even sure where to start. Gentleness has never been his strong suit. Geralt hadn’t been gentle on the mountain that day— _shoveling shit, take you off my hands_ —but none of his feelings had ever been gentle, either. Outsized, wild, brutish feelings, the kinds of feelings that suited the witcher who had them, pushed as deep as they could go until they ruptured. The kinds that are often hard to put into words. The kind that are the exact opposite of what people expect witchers to have.

He steps back into the cave. His hair is heavy with water, pattering onto the floor. Ciri and Jaskier hardly look up—she must have been scared, he sees, and Jaskier was trying to distract her, making shapes on the cave wall, where the firelight throws shadow.

“And this is a horse,” Jaskier says. “Some kind of horse. It’s got a lot of legs, I suppose, but still a horse.”

Ciri is giggling. She’s got her hands outstretched, too.

“A dragon,” she says. “Do you see its wings?”

“Ooh, _very_ good, princess!”

Geralt comes to sit down by the fire, watching wordlessly as they continue to play.

“Look, Jaskier, a castle—”

“And see, Ciri, an eagle, and it’s shitting on Geralt’s head—”

Jaskier catches Geralt’s eye, and schools his smile away, drops his hands into his lap.

“Anyways,” Jaskier says, “I think that’s all I’ve got.”

That other night in the cave, Jaskier had licked down the line of Geralt’s throat. Whined impatiently at Geralt’s shirt until he’d taken it off. Light, stinging bites down his chest. Jaskier did not have to be too gentle with him, either. Then, trousers pushed away, and Geralt’s cock free to the air, and the deep moan Jaskier made when he saw it. _Just when I thought when I was running out of material on you_ , he’d said, and Geralt surprised himself by coughing up a laugh as Jaskier tongued down over the tip, took him into his mouth. Geralt’s fingers sunk deep in his hair, taking deep breaths to keep from spilling at the pleasure too soon. What was he sensing from Jaskier, then? Desire and lust and _still_ , somehow, longing, even when Geralt was with him, right there, as close as they could be.

Ciri also drops her hands. “That’s all I’ve got, too.”

“It’s flooding out there,” Geralt says. “Hard to say whether we’ll be able to get out tomorrow or not.”

Jaskier nods, but he doesn’t look happy. Ciri yawns.

“I’m tired,” she says. Without many more words exchanged, Ciri pulls her bed roll closer to the fire, turns her face into the material of it. Minutes later, her breaths even out, and she’s asleep.

For a long time they don’t speak, both gazing into the dying fire. Geralt throws the last of the kindling in. Then he turns to Jaskier. He knows something he could do that might comfort them both.

“You’ve been bleeding.”

“What?” Jaskier looks up, startled from his reverie. “Oh. It really is nothing.” Under Geralt’s gaze, he says, “I tripped is all, on the way up here. It was slippery.”

“Let me see.”

Jaskier opens his mouth, as if to argue, and instead lets out a breath and stretches out his leg. His clothes have dried enough that Geralt can tell, now, that the material is a light blue, and the leg if it spotted through with red. He hisses, a bit, as he pulls up the bottom of his trousers, the dried blood making the material stick to his skin. His shin has a gash in it, not wide but deep enough, and still sluggishly bleeding through its scab. Geralt stands up and grabs the necessary items from Roach’s saddlebags.

“Really, it’s fine,” Jaskier says, leaning forward to hover his hand protectively over his shin. Geralt doesn’t deign that with a response, just pushes Jaskier’s hand aside and starts gently wetting the blood away. Jaskier relents, watching quietly. Geralt holds his calf on one hand, gently turning it to get the rest of the blood where it had run down either side of his leg.

“Could use a couple stitches,” he observes.

Jaskier’s smile is brittle. “Don’t suppose you have a flagon of ale?”

Geralt shakes his head. After a moment, Jaskier jerks his chin at Geralt to get on with it, so he does, careful as he can, two efficient stitches bringing the torn edges of Jaskier’s skin back together again. Jaskier takes in a big breath as he’s doing it, staring at the ceiling. Geralt senses from Jaskier pain and hurt, two distinct things, one due to the stitches threading into his skin, the other a weighty kind of baggage, something he’s probably been carrying for a while. (And longing too.) Somewhere, the sound of trees snapping like twigs. The wind moaning over the entrance to the cave. And Jaskier’s eyes, looking wet in the firelight.

So what if it was Destiny, Geralt thinks, as he carefully turns Jaskier’s bare calf in his hands. He can’t be mad that Destiny brought them back together, so long as they are together.

“Finished,” he says.

“Alright,” Jaskier says. He pulls his leg back. Still, they sit there without saying anything.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” Geralt says. “Not in a storm like this.”

What he is really trying to say, trying to ask, is why Jaskier would do that. What that time at the cave means to him—then, or still. Why he would risk something he shouldn’t--a storm and injury, and him only human— to get here.

But Jaskier’s face shutters. “Yes,” he says, looking away. “I—sorry. I didn’t mean to get hurt. I didn’t mean to cause any more problems.”

Geralt opens his mouth, but Jaskier shakes his head.

“I’m tired, too,” he says, and stands up. His bedroll is still damp. He begins to pull it away from them—Geralt, Ciri, Roach—closer to the entrance of the cave, where the wind is louder and the stones underfoot visibly gleam with water.

“The fire won’t last the night,” Geralt says. “Come sleep over here.”

“It’s fine, really.”

“The cave floor isn’t so wet here, either.”

“I’d rather n—”

“Don’t be stupid, Jaskier,” he says, harsh because he knows no other way to ask him, to show him that he wants Jaskier closer. But it works. Jaskier sighs, short and sharp, and reverses direction.

Geralt pulls his bedroll up close behind Ciri, and then nods at the empty space left at his back. Jaskier wordlessly lays down there, avoiding eye contact. And although Geralt can feel him back there, sense his presence, hear his heartbeat, there is no place where their bodies touch.

“Are you cold?” He asks gruffly.

“No, I—it’s fine, Geralt. It’s fine.” Jaskier’s voice is quiet, flat. They don’t speak again.

 _Not like this_ , Geralt had said, _not while we’re drunk_. So he didn’t fuck Jaskier that other night in the cave. But he did enclose Jaskier’s cock in his wide palm, urged him to thrust up into the tight circle of his fist, and Jaskier rocked against him like that until he came. Cave walls ringing with his moans, mouth falling soft and slack, hips pulsing through the last of his orgasm. Geralt had rolled them over, tucked Jaskier tight into his chest. Felt beneath his palm Jaskier’s heart still hammering in his chest. _We’ll do that again_ , he said, or maybe he just thought it. Jaskier’s lustdesirelonging scent in the air still had him feeling drunk. Little had Geralt known, then. That it would be the first, only time. That after would come the djinn, and Yennefer, and mistake after mistake, and Jaskier taking the cue of silence, never speaking to it again, even as his longing swelled like a wave. It had just been something they’d done when they were drunk, he told himself. Sometimes Geralt thought it was just a dream. Because it felt like a dream, that he could push his outsized, brutish love on a fragile human, that he could cleave both to the Path and to the bard at the same time, that there could ever be no repercussions for that. He knew what he had to do. He buried those feelings deep, sure they would go away in time.

Outside, the wind picks up, and it shrieks and shrieks and shrieks.

**

In the morning, Geralt is surprised to find he slept at all, especially considering the gale he’d heard for hours. The cave is dim, and as he turns, he sees in order—Roach, standing with her ears back, pissed, at the rear of the cave; Ciri, sleeping with her face tucked into her arm; behind him, Jaskier, asleep, because his body was warm and tucked up tight to Geralt’s; and then the cave entrance—blocked by a tree.

“Fuck,” he says.

He stays there for a few minutes more, because it’s nice to hear the deep, sleeping breaths of Jaskier and Ciri on either side of them, the unconscious trust that comes with sleeping so close to him. But finally he eases up, steps over Jaskier, and looks closely at the tree, which must have been swept there by the floodwaters and wind coming howling down the mountain last night. It’s large—as big as Roach around, maybe even larger. He kicks at it with his leg and doesn’t move it an inch. Finally, he casts aard and the tree creaks, splintering, and dislodges itself with a moan. He steps closer to the mouth of the cave to watch it roll end over end down the slope.

His breath catches. Nearly every tree on every hill in sight has been toppled. It’s like staring at a field of dead soldiers, quiet and still, in every direction he looks. He wonders at the damage to the tavern, just a mile away. If it’s been swept as completely from the map as everything else he can see now.

It occurs to him that Jaskier probably wouldn’t have survived—there, at the tavern, or here, with the tree blocking the cave mouth. Not unless Geralt had been here with him too.

Destiny, he thinks, still a bit sourly.

But he only feels sour now because he still doesn’t know what will happen next.

When he turns back, the other two are awake now. Even humans couldn’t sleep through the noise of the tree sent crashing away. Jaskier is sitting half-up, on his elbow, rubbing at his eye. His hair sticks up in about seven different directions.

“Is that a tree…or… are you just happy to see me,” he mumbles, still obviously half-asleep, too.

“We should be able to leave today. The storm’s past.”

“Oh, good,” Jaskier says vaguely, still waking up. Ciri stands up, stretches. She gasps when she sees the destruction outside.

Geralt turns to Jaskier. “We need to talk.”

“Oh?” Jaskier says, sounding more alert. 

“Ciri and I are traveling to Kaer Morhen,” Geralt says. “I’d like you to come with us.”

“Oh,” Jaskier says yet again. He looks away from Geralt, frowning. “Is this, uh, about the Nilfgaard thing? Because I’m handling it, Geralt, honestly.”

“You’re handling it,” he repeats. “An entire empire is on the search for Ciri and I, and you by association, and you’re handling it.”

“It’s,” Jaskier says, examining his nailbeds, “handled.”

Geralt tries to remind himself that they are not traveling together anymore. That even when they were, he never demanded Jaskier went anywhere with him. Jaskier always chose the Path, and Geralt. And he can’t fault Jaskier if he won’t do that anymore.

But he can also sense Jaskier—confusion and trepidation and yes, longing, _still_ , and it’s that, more than anything, that keeps him talking.

“Jaskier, look at me.”

Jaskier unwillingly looks.

“Ciri, go do something with Roach.”

Ciri jumps a bit at Geralt’s abrupt demand, but nods and takes Roach’s reins and leads her gingerly to the cave mouth. Once they are out of sight, Geralt turns back to Jaskier.

“Look,” Jaskier says quickly. “I can only assume this is about your sense of _honor_ , but I don’t want to travel with you when it’s been made clear you don’t want to travel with me, either. Parting ways again will just suit us both best.”

Geralt shakes his head.

“That’s not—I’m sorry,” he says. The words are like spitting rocks, but he tries. “Since you’ve been here… I’ve been trying to make it up to you in the ways I know how.”

Jaskier’s face does that thing again—the multiple expressions, too fast to follow. “Make it up to me?” he repeats, wonderingly. “In the ways you know how?”

“I asked you to join us in the cave,” Geralt says, standing up. “I offered you food… I cared for your injury. Had you sleep close to me in the night. I was trying to show you… how sorry I am.”

“You’re sorry,” Jaskier repeats, still in that musing voice. Finally, he snorts a laugh and stands up too. “You know, Geralt, it was never by your _actions_ that you made me feel unwanted, all those years together. Your actions actually made me feel like you wanted me around. Sometimes, very much so, like when you jerked me off in this very cave.”

Geralt shakes his head, hoping Ciri isn’t close enough to hear. “Alright, so—”

“Your words, however, have always done the opposite thing. What you’ve said, and what you’ve chosen _not_ to say.” He remembers, that day on the mountain— _just trying to work out what pleases me_. It’s not like Jaskier hasn’t given him opportunities to speak. “So you ordered me out of your life, nearly a year ago, and blamed me for everything wrong in it, and then when I see you next you offer me a few apple slices, like I’m Roach, have me sleep on some hard rock a _little_ closer to you than I might be otherwise, you know what that looks like to me? These actions, after those words? It’s not making it up to me, Geralt. It’s like putting salve on a tumor.”

It takes a moment, before the words register. Geralt’s own words, repeated back to him. He grits his teeth, seeing where the conversation is headed.

“You—” he begins.

“ _You_ —” Jaskier says, just as heated.

For a moment, Geralt is ready to shout Jaskier into doing what he wants him to—of course he belongs with him, at his side again, instead of unwanted in Lettenhove, dodging Nilfgaard on the roads. But Geralt shakes his head. He doesn’t want to fight with Jaskier. He needs to apologize in the only way a bard could really understand—in words.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Jaskier, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have blamed you for everything, or made you feel I don’t want you in my life. I did—want you. In my life. And every day since the mountain. I’m sorry.”

Jaskier stares at him for a long moment, his fingers rubbing against each other. He had been raring for a fight, Geralt could tell. Had probably wanted to vent a year’s worth—or maybe a decade’s worth—of ill-used feeling at him. Geralt still deserves that. But he’s hoping that what he’s saying is enough, now, that they won’t be leaving the cave apart. 

“It’s a start,” Jaskier finally says, sniffing. He kneels down to begin to pack up his bedroll, so his face is turned away when he says, “And how will Yennefer feel about me being back in your life again?”

“Doesn’t matter what she thinks,” Geralt says.

“No?”

“I’m not with her,” Geralt says. “She’s helping train Ciri—she’s a part of my life, as much as it might be easier if she wasn’t. But I’m not with her.”

“Oh,” says Jaskier, returning to the morning’s monosyllables. He leans back on his heels. “So,” he says carefully, “just to be _entirely_ clear, when you say you want me in your life again—”

“However you want to be,” Geralt says. “My barker, my traveling companion, my friend, something more. I don’t care.”

“Something more?” Jaskier says. His voice sounds a bit brittle. “That’s rather broad, isn’t it?”

Geralt turns to look at the cave entrance. Ciri still isn’t back, but even if she was—he owes Jaskier this. Words, not just actions.

“You’ve always smelled like longing,” he says, still looking away. “Even when we were together. Even here, you did. It wasn’t like that with Yennefer. With you—it’s like you always want me, whether I’m close to you, or far. It’s never gone away.”

Jaskier shifts on his feet. Softly, like it’s a confession—“Always.”

“Is that what brought you back here? Those feelings?”

“Yes,” Jaskier says.

Geralt nods. “Me too.” He’s still looking out the cave entrance. But he can feel it, those feelings he’s long suppressed. Bursting out of his chest like a boulder coming rolling down the mountainside. Impossible to move out of the way.

“Alright,” Jaskier says. He’s got his bedroll in a snug curl now. “Say I do come with you. On a trial basis. What would that look like?”

Something swells in Geralt’s chest.

“Exactly like it sounds like,” he says. “A winter in Kaer Morhen. Yennefer, Ciri, Vesemir, my brothers. It’s lonely up there, and cold, but almost everyone would welcome you.”

“Ah, _almost_ ,” Jaskier says. But there’s a smile in his voice. “And if I wanted to leave?”

“That could be arranged.”

“My own bedroom?”

“That could be arranged.”

“Your bedroom?”

“That… could be arranged,” Geralt says. He finally turns to look at Jaskier straight-on. The other man is grinning. He senses hope and humor and yes, longing, still. Always.

He knows his time with a human can only be finite. The repercussions will be that there will never be too much of Jaskier’s longing—only not enough. Geralt’s outsized, brutish feelings will not be gentle when Jaskier’s life leaves him someday.

But Geralt returned to the cave, and so did Jaskier. So he supposes they have accepted these repercussions.

Jaskier’s moved to stand by Geralt, and his mouth hangs open, looking past him at the devastation outside.

“Geralt, you don’t think—my lute!”

“We’ll stop at the tavern on the way,” he says. “Even if have to pick through every beam and floorboard left, we’ll find it.”

“Oh, thank Melitele—”

“I didn’t say it would be _unbroken_ ,” Geralt points out. “I just said we’d find it, whatever its remains may be. Could be a pile of wood chips for all I know.”

Jaskier’s mouth opens and closes a few times, at a loss for words. “You—you know what—next time I’ve got your cock in my mouth, how about instead of finishing you off I pull back and snap it like kindling in my hands instead—how’s that for salve on a tumor, hmm?—Bastard—”

Geralt reels him in with a hand in the bard’s collar, cuts off his words with a kiss. Jaskier pushes him—he lets himself be pushed—against the cave wall, where Jaskier hitches a leg up around Geralt’s hip and urges his tongue against Geralt’s in a way that is already seeming familiar. Warm, deep, and his hands knotted in Geralt’s hair. There’s hunger in Jaskier’s kiss, desperation in the way he slots their mouths together. Like it’s still not enough, even when all their feelings are finally coming undammed. Geralt palms him closer.

He can hear Ciri’s footsteps somewhere close by, and Roach’s hoofs. It’s nearly time to leave here. He pulls back, frames Jaskier’s face in his palms, his sword-calloused thumbs light along Jaskier’s cheekbones. Words, paired with actions. He can figure that much out, at least. 

“Jaskier,” he says. “I’ve missed you.”

It’s close, but not exactly what he means. Something more than missing, which is a word that is only a pebble compared to what he really feels. _Missing_ doesn’t encapsulate the last near-year without him, or the decades before, which were close, but never close enough. He shakes his head in frustration.

Jaskier’s eyes are bright, though. He presses one last kiss to Geralt’s mouth.

“I’ve always missed you,” he says. And that, Geralt knows, is true. 

**Author's Note:**

> 1) Read about cyclones hitting Europe and had An Idea  
> 2) The lute is fine, I promise


End file.
